Emotion Regulation Questionnaire ERQ

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) was developed by Stanford University psychologist James J. Gross's team developed the self-report measurement tool in 2003. It is mainly used to assess the frequency of individuals using two mainstream emotion regulation strategies: "cognitive reappraisal" and "expressive suppression." It is currently one of the most widely used emotion regulation measurement tools in global psychological research and clinical psychological screening. There are multiple localized revised versions in China that have been tested for reliability and validity, and the interpretation of total scores and dimensional scores are adapted to the domestic cultural context.

The first time I came into contact with ERQ was seven years ago when I was working on an emotional intervention project for teenagers in a university research group. In order to select a scale for group screening, the entire team read the literature for three days and tried a multi-dimensional emotion regulation scale with more than 20 questions. During the pre-survey, half of the junior high school students started to choose randomly after filling in the half-way, because it was too long. Don't tell me, after switching to ERQ, the fastest child could fill out the 10 questions in 2 minutes, and the efficiency directly increased to over 95%.

The small number of questions is not cutting corners, but is supported by the emotional process model proposed by Gross. This model divides emotional regulation into two categories according to the stages of occurrence: one is to actively adjust cognition before the emotion is fully aroused, which is "cognitive reappraisal." For example, if you are late for the subway, don't worry about "the perfect attendance award is gone", instead think about "just can avoid the most crowded class in the morning rush hour, and you can buy a steamed bun that you haven't eaten before", which is a typical cognitive reappraisal.； The other type is that after the emotion has emerged, the person actively suppresses external emotional expression, which is called "expressive suppression." For example, when being scolded by the leader, one feels angry, but still pretends to be calm in front of colleagues, and holds back the tears when one wants to cry. This is considered expression suppression. Among the 10 questions of the ERQ, 6 test cognitive reappraisal and 4 test expressive suppression. They are scored on a 7-point scale. In the end, just calculate the average score of the two dimensions. There is almost no threshold for operation.

Of course, ERQ has been criticized a lot. Colleagues who do basic research always think that the dimensions it covers are too narrow. After all, there are at least a dozen emotion regulation strategies sorted out by the academic community. Acceptance, rumination, catharsis, and attention shifting are all very common types. ERQ only captures the two most representative ones, which inevitably misses a lot of information. Clinical counselors also often say that self-evaluation scales cannot escape the problem of social desirability bias. Many people assume that "holding back emotions is a sign of maturity" and "if you think about it from another perspective, self-comfort is too cowardly." When filling out the questionnaire, they deliberately choose the direction that conforms to social expectations, and the resulting scores are not accurate at all.

Interestingly, cross-cultural research is more controversial. We previously collaborated with companies to conduct employee mental health screenings. For samples of the same age group, the average expressive suppression score of domestic employees was 0.8 points higher than the American norm. If we directly apply Western judgment standards, one-third of the people would belong to the "emotion regulation risk group." However, after actual interviews, most people felt that " "You shouldn't show your emotions casually in the workplace, this is professionalism." There is no problem with emotional regulation at all - to put it bluntly, Western culture encourages the expression of emotions. Our culture originally values "emotions and anger should be invisible". There is no absolute standard for good or bad scores. It is really unreliable to impose Western norms.

What particularly impressed me was that a high school boy I received last year filled out the ERQ for the first time. His average score for cognitive reappraisal was only 2.1, but his expressive suppression score was 6.7. According to the preliminary judgment of the scale, he was a typical "unable to actively regulate emotions, and long-term suppression is prone to psychological problems." But after chatting for half an hour, I found out that he had been taught by his parents since he was a child that "it's useless for boys to cry" and "don't make excuses when things happen, look for reasons from yourself." It's not that he doesn't know how to think about problems from another perspective, but he simply feels that "thinking from another perspective is to find excuses for yourself, which is the behavior of a coward." He would rather hold it in than adjust his cognition. You see, the scale can measure what strategies he uses, but it cannot measure why he uses such strategies. This is its natural limitation.

When we do screening now, we never only look at the ERQ score. We usually combine it with the emotional state scale of the past week, plus semi-structured interview cross-validation. If a large sample of hundreds of people is to be screened for preliminary screening, ERQ's cost-effectiveness is indeed unparalleled. All data can be collected in half an hour, and people with high inhibition and low re-evaluation can be quickly selected for further investigation, saving an unknown amount of effort. But if you are evaluating an individual, you should use it as a reference at most, and you will never make a judgment based on the score.

To be honest, both academic and clinical circles now have a unified attitude towards ERQ: it is not a perfect measurement tool, but it is definitely the most cost-effective choice among its types. To put it bluntly, it is like a mercury thermometer that is always available at home. It can quickly detect whether you have abnormal body temperature. However, to really determine whether it is a cold or inflammation, further examination is required. If you just want to get a rough idea of ​​your usual emotional regulation habits, just find a regular localized revised version of the ERQ and fill it out. Don’t panic even if your score doesn’t look ideal. It’s just a reminder. Whether there are specific problems and how to adjust them must be judged based on your own actual life situation. There is really no need to dwell on those few scores.